Free web hosting – that’s impossible, right? Or at the very least, you might think that’s it going to be full of ads or come with other catches…

But we’re here to tell you that you actually can find fully-functioning free website hosting without any ads.

000webhost is a free web hosting service that lets you set up a website with your own cPanel, PHP, and MySQL. It functions just like a paid host – you can install WordPress, connect via FTP, and do everything else you’d want to do.

And best of all, 000webhost has no ads. Your website is all your own – not a billboard for other people.

How 000webhost’s Free Hosting Works

When you create a free 000webhost account, you can host up to two websites for free. You get:

1 GB disk space

10 GB bandwidth

2 MySQL databases (that’s good for two WordPress installs!)

cPanel to help you manage your server

WordPress autoinstaller to easily install WordPress

FTP support

phpMyAdmin

Basically – it’s fully-functioning hosting. Additionally, your website is 100% your own – you can even put your own ads on it if you want to.

The only additional restriction on the free plan is that your site will “sleep” for one hour per day. During this time, your website won’t be available to the public.

But here’s the good news:

You can choose which hour your site sleeps. So you can pick a time when 99% of your audience is asleep to avoid inconveniencing any of your visitors.

How To Launch Your Free Website In A Few Minutes

To take advantage of 000webhost’s free website hosting, you first need to create a free account:

Then, you’ll land in the 000webhost dashboard:

By default, 000webhost sets you up with a subdomain at 000webhostapp.com. But, you’re by no means limited to this subdomain.

You can use your own custom domain name, instead. Yes, even on the free plan.

Set Up Custom Domain Name

To set up your custom domain name, go to the Set web address tab. There, you can either use your own domain name that you’ve purchased elsewhere or purchase a domain name from Hostinger:

How To Build Your Website (And/Or Install WordPress)

Once you’ve set up your custom domain name, you’ll probably want to actually launch your website so that you have some content to show the world.

To do that, go to the Build website tab.

Here, you can choose to:

Build your website using 000webhost’s Easy Website Builder

Install the WordPress software

Because we love WordPress, we’ve opted to install WordPress for our test site:

Once you fill out some basic details for your WordPress configuration, 000webhost will automatically install WordPress for you and then you can start using your site right away.

Just like that, you have the default WordPress install up and running. As you can see in the screenshot below, there are no ads at all. The only thing is the small Powered by 000webhost icon in the bottom right corner, which is a fair tradeoff for getting free hosting in our opinion:

Managing Your Free Website Hosting At 000webhost

At this point, you’ve got a working website. But you’ll probably want to manage your site at some point, which is another one of the areas where 000webhost shines against the competition.

Rather than limiting what you can do, 000webhost gives you full access to your server, its files, and its databases.

For example, to add new files directly to your server, you can just head to the File manager tab:

Similarly, you can manage your site’s database, including accessing phpMyAdmin, from the Manage Database tab:

You can even set up your own email address like yourname@yourdomain.com from the Manage emails tab:

More Detailed Settings Tabs

In the dedicated Settings area, you can manage a lot of smaller areas for your site.

One of the most important things that you can do here is to choose when your free hosting goes to “sleep”. Again, this is the one-hour duration where your free website hosting is unavailable. You can choose the exact hour by entering a value in the box:

We recommend that you make this when most of your audience will be sleeping.

Other things that you can do in this area include:

Manage your FTP details so that you can connect to your site via your FTP program of choice

Change PHP version (the default version is PHP 7.1, which is good)

Create and manage redirects

Control security settings, like hotlink protection and IP address blacklists

What If You Need More Premium Settings?

The cool thing about 000webhost’s free website hosting is that if you ever feel like you want to upgrade to the premium plans for:

No one-hour website sleep period

Unlimited websites

Unlimited traffic and bandwidth

Lots of other extra features

Then, you can do that straight from the interface without losing the site that you created using 000webhost’s free plan.

When you upgrade to one of Hostinger’s premium plans*, they’ll move all of your websites, domains, and files over for you. Easy peasy!

*Hostinger is the company behind 000webhost, so you’re sticking with the same business when you move your site to premium.

Enjoy Free Website Hosting That Doesn’t Put The Shackles On You

While you can find other free website hosting services, most of them only give you limited access and might even display their own ads on your website.

When you use 000webhost, though, you’re getting access to the exact same hosting environment that premium services use. You’ll be able to:

Install WordPress

Use your own domain name

Upload files to your server via the web interface or FTP

Manage your MySQL database and edit it with phpMyAdmin

Set up redirects and other server configurations

The only differences are that:

Your server will go to sleep for one hour per day (but again, you can choose when this hour is)

There will be a small “powered by 000webhost” icon in the bottom-right corner of your website

Colin Newcomer is a freelance writer for hire with a background in SEO and affiliate marketing. He helps clients grow their web visibility by writing primarily about digital marketing, WordPress, and B2B topics.

This is a nice review. I used 00web host for a very long time and I must say it’s a great learning tool/host for you to get the feeling of hosting and managing your site. Even though it has some down times but remember it’s free and your not paying a penny.

You can then upgrade to their premium packages which are also cool. I am using them now.

I am using Hostinger from last eight months and Its just surprises me with lots of features and benefits in just a affordable price. The service it provides is just amazing and awesome. I am fully satisfied with the services with is very much affordable and work effeciently.